PART II.HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.Those now who propose to hold mutual discussion must needs understand one another somewhat: for without this how can they have any mutual discussion? Each of their words then, must be familiar and have definite meaning, and not many meanings, but one only, and if it have more meanings than one, they must make it clear in which of these senses it is used.Aristotle, Metaph., Book X, c. 5, § 3.Section 21.When Heraclitus of Ephesus, moved thereto by his view of the constant flux of things, declared it impossible to enter the same river twice,[30]he evidently supposed that a river can be the same only in the first and strictest sense of the word. He denied, consequently, a right to use the word, as it constantly is used, to indicate that certain phenomena belong to a group or series, which, in its totality, is to us a single object. When we say that we have entered the same river twice we have no reference to the actual experiences of the two occasions considered merely as experiences. Of course, these are not the same, as each is itself, and they may even be somewhat dissimilar. Nor have we reference to the separate particles of which the body of water is composed. We all admit that the water in a river changes, and yet we never think of saying that the river is no longer the same. The two kinds of sameness are quite distinct, yet both are legitimate; and both were as familiar to the ancient Greek as to the modern American. Socrates was considered Socrates from boyhood through youth to manhood. The Ilissus was the Ilissus whether swollen or shrunken. The philosopher's difficulty with the river did not arise out ofthe fact that this kind of sameness was not perfectly well recognized in language and in common thought. It arose out of the fact that the beginnings of reflection make many things seem strange which before passed unnoticed, and sometimes lead to assertion and denial evidently contrary to experience and common sense. The unreflective man calls the river the same on two successive days, but he has no clear notion of what the word implies. In a loose way he opposes "same" to "different." Heraclitus saw that the water in a river is constantly changing. He who enters twice does not enter precisely the same body of water. What more natural, and what more fallacious, than to assert that he does not twice enter the same river?Sec. 22.And well might Cratylus hold his peace and move his finger[31]when he had capped the climax with the statement that the same river could not be entered once. Heraclitus had merely denied sameness of the third kind to be sameness, since it implies duality. Cratylus, surprised by a discovery of duality where he had not before suspected it, will not allow the term where there is no duality whatever. It is not surprising that he came at last to be "of opinion that one ought to speak of nothing." Upon such a basis speech loses its significance.Sec. 23.The Parmenidean argument for the eternity of Being[32]rests partly upon a confusion of the first kind of sameness with the fourth. Being has had no origin, for from what could it have been derived? Not from the non-existent, for this has no existence: and not from the existent, for it is itself the existent. The quibble about the non-existent we need not consider, though it is seriously repeated by more than one writer of our time. The last part of the argument, "not from the existent, for it is itself the existent," draws its whole force from the assumptionthat "it" is "the existent" as a thing is itself, or in the first sense of the word same. But if this be the case, the argument is a mere farce, an argument only in words. The phrase, "derived from the existent," means nothing at all unless it means that the existent in question is before the thing derived. To say it is the thing derived, is to reduce the words to nothing. If it mean anything to speak of the existent as derived from the existent, it is because each of these isanexistent—that is, a thing belonging to a class and distinguished from other members of this class by some difference. In this case the difference is that of before and after. An existent derived from an existent is the same with it only as things of a class are the same. If we choose to eliminate all differences and speak of "theexistent" we may do so; but then it is inadmissible to raise questions about its derivation, and bring in those very time distinctions between different "existents" which we are supposing absent.Sec. 24.The nihilistic doctrine of Gorgias of Leontini,[33]who taught that nothing exists, that if it did exist it could not be known, and that if it did exist and could be known the knowledge of it could not be communicated by one mind to another, is founded in part upon such bad reasoning that it is rather surprising that Gorgias should have been guilty of it. That part of it, however, which has to do with the communicability of knowledge is rather better than the rest, and indicates some progress in reflection. A sign, he says, differs from the thing it signifies. How can one communicate the notion of color by words, since the ear hears sounds and not colors? Besides, how can the same idea be in two different persons? This reasoning would seem at least plausible, I think, to many minds at the present day. It is evidently the offspring of a confusion of samenesses. A sign differs,it is true, from the thing signified. The word blue heard by the ear is not like the color blue seen or imagined. But if any one pronounce the word, and ask me if I am thinking of the color he has mentioned, I say yes. The sound is not like the color, but it is its representative, and one of the proper uses of the word same (the fifth) indicates just this relation between representative and thing represented. Any attempt to discredit communication of knowledge on the ground that one cannot speak colors, and that, therefore, one man is speaking one thing and the other thinking another, goes on the supposition that what is said and what is thought must be the same in sense first (strict identity) or in sense fourth (must be a thing of the same kind). And as to the existence of the same thing in two minds; here Gorgias has evidently discovered with some surprise that sameness in sense sixth differs from sameness in sense first, and has felt impelled to deny it the name altogether. He has perceived a duality where most men have not noticed it; and, instead of observing that there are samenesses and samenesses, and that the communication of knowledge is concerned with the sixth kind in this connection, and not with the first, he has denied the communication of knowledge. Had he found it necessary to carry out his theoretic premises to practical conclusions he would have stopped talking, which he did not; though presumably the irrepressible didactic instinct would have led him, spite of consistency, to imitate Cratylus in moving his finger.Sec. 25.The reasoning in the Platonic Dialogues is very frequently not above suspicion; but it is not easy to find anywhere such a nest of paralogisms as we have in the Parmenides. How far Plato was in earnest in all this quibbling, and what was his aim, I will not pretend to say. He has, however, very well illustrated the possibilities of equivocation in juggling with samenesses, andI shall quote a bit of the argument concerning the one and the many to show how readily this is done. Almost any part of the dialogue would do, but I choose the first bout between Parmenides and Aristoteles. I take Professor Jowett's version:[34]Parmenides proceeded: If one is, he said, the one cannot be many?Impossible.Then the one cannot have parts, and cannot be a whole?How is that?Why, the part would surely be the part of a whole?Yes.And that of which no part is wanting, would be a whole?Certainly.Then, in either case, one would be made up of parts; both as being a whole, and also as having parts?Certainly.And in either case, the one would be many, and not one?True.But, surely, one ought to be not many, but one?Surely.Then, if one is to remain one, it will not be a whole, and will not have parts?No.And if one has no parts, it will have neither beginning, middle, nor end; for these would be parts of one?Right.But then, again, a beginning and an end are the limits of everything?Certainly.Then the one, neither having beginning nor end, is unlimited?Yes, unlimited.And therefore formless, as not being able to partake either of round or straight.How is that?Why, the round is that of which all the extreme points are equidistant from the centre?Yes.And the straight is that of which the middle intercepts the extremes?True.Then the one would have parts, and would be many, whether it partook of a straight or of a round form?Assuredly.But having no parts, one will be neither straight nor round?Right.Then, being of such a nature, one cannot be in any place, for it cannot be either in another or in itself.How is that?Because, if one be in another, it will be encircled in that other in which it is contained, and will touch it in many places; but that which is one and indivisible, and does not partake of a circular nature, cannot be touched by a circle in many places.Certainly not.And one being in itself, will also contain itself, and cannot be other than one, if in itself; for nothing can be in anything which does not contain it.Impossible.But then, is not that which contains other than that which is contained? for the same whole cannot at once be affected actively and passively; and one will thus be no longer one, but two?True.Then one cannot be anywhere, either in itself or in another?No.Further consider, whether that which is of such a nature can have either rest or motion.Why not?Why, because motion is either motion in place or change in self; these are the only kinds of motion.Yes.And the one, when changed in itself, cannot possibly be any longer one.It cannot.And therefore cannot experience this sort of motion?Clearly not.Can the motion of one, then, be in place?Perhaps.But if one moved in place, must it not either move round and round in the same place, or from one place to another?Certainly.And that which moves round and round in the same place, must go round upon a centre; and that which goes round upon a centre must have other parts which move around the centre; but that which has no centre and no parts cannot possibly be carried round upon a centre?Impossible.But perhaps the motion of the one consists in going from one place to another?Perhaps so, if it moves at all.And have we not already shown that one can not be in anything?Yes.And still greater is the impossibility of one coming into being in anything?I do not see how that is.Why, because anything which comes into being in anything,cannot as yet be in that other thing while still coming into being, nor remain entirely out of it, if already coming into being in it.Certainly.And therefore whatever comes into being in another must have parts, and the one part may be in that other, and the other part out of it; but that which has no parts cannot possibly be at the same time a whole, which is either within or without anything.True.And how can that which has neither parts, nor a whole, come into being anywhere either as a part or a whole? Is not that a still greater impossibility?Clearly.Then one does not change by a change of place, whether by going somewhere and coming into being in something; or again, by going round in the same place; or again, by change in itself?True.The one, then, is incapable of any kind of motion?Incapable.But neither can the one exist in anything, as we affirm?Yes, that is affirmed by us.Then it is never in the same?Why not?Because being in the same is being in something which is the same.Certainly.But it cannot be in itself, and cannot be in other?True.Then one is never the same?[35]It would seem not.And that which is never in the same has no rest, and stands not still?It cannot stand still.One, then, as would seem, is neither standing still nor in motion?Clearly not.Neither will one be the same with itself or other; nor again, other than itself, or other.How is that?If other than itself it would be other than one, and would not be one.True.And if the same with other, it would be that other, and not itself; so that upon this supposition, too, it would not have the nature of one, but would be other than one?It would.Then it will not be the same with other, or other than itself?It will not.Neither will one be other than other, while it remains one; for not the one, but only the other, can be other of other, and nothing else.True.Then not by virtue of being one, will one be other?Certainly not.But if not by virtue of being one, not by virtue of being itself; and if not by virtue of being itself, not itself, and itself not being other at all, will not be other of anything?Right.Neither will one be the same with itself.Why not?Because the nature of the one is surely not the nature of the same.Why is that?Because when a thing becomes the same with anything, it does not necessarily become one.Why not?That which becomes the same with the many necessarily becomes many and not one.True.And yet, if there were no difference between the one and the same, when a thing became the same, it would always become one; and when it became one, the same.Certainly.And, therefore, if one be the same with one, it is not one with one, and will therefore be one and also not one.But that is surely impossible.And therefore the one can neither be other of other, nor the same with one.Impossible.And thus one is neither the same, nor other, in relation to itself or other?No.Neither will one be like or unlike itself or other.Why not?Because likeness is sameness of affections.Yes.And sameness has been shown to be a nature distinct from oneness?That has been shown.But if one had any other affection than that of being one, it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one; and that is impossible.True.Then one can never have the same affections either as another or as itself?Clearly not.Then it cannot be like other, or like itself.No.Nor can it be affected so as to be other, for then it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one.It would.That which is affected in a manner other than itself or other, will be unlike itself or other, if sameness of affections is likeness.True.But the one, as appears, never having affections other than its own, is never unlike itself or other?Never.Then the one is never either like or unlike itself or other?Plainly not.In reading this extract one cannot but admire the courtesy or wonder at the simplicity of Aristoteles. He always answers just as he should to keep the ball rolling; and he is in no wise compelled to do this under the circumstances, for the argument is loose in the extreme. Briefly stated, the reasoning is as follows:One cannot be a whole, and cannot have parts, for then it would not be one, but many. But if it has no parts it has no beginning, middle, or end, and is formless. It is then in no place, for it cannot be in itself, since the container must be different from the thing contained; nor can it be in other, for it would have to be encircled by that other, and touched in many parts, which is impossible. It follows that it can neither be at rest nor in motion. Not in motion; for it cannot have change in itself, or it would no longer be one; nor can it have motion in place, whether circular motion upon a centre or motion fromplace to place; the former for the reason that circular motion implies a centre and parts around the centre; and the latter because one is in no place: and as to coming into being in anything, which may be regarded as a kind of motion, while doing this it would have to be part in and part not in, which is impossible. It cannot be at rest, for one is never in the same; to be in the same, is to be in something which is the same, and one cannot be in anything. Nor, farther, can one be the same with itself or other, nor other than itself or other. If other than itself it would not be one; and if the same with other it would be that other, and not itself. On the other hand only other can be the other of other, and not one; and the one cannot be the same with itself, for the nature of the one is not the nature of the same, since that which becomes the same with the many does not become one. Finally, one cannot be like or unlike itself or other, for likeness is sameness of affections, and sameness is not oneness; one must, however, have no affection except oneness, or it becomes more than one. It cannot, then, have the same affections as itself or other. As, for the same reason, it cannot have other affections than itself or other, it cannot be unlike.We have here one chief error, which runs through almost the whole of the argument—is, indeed, the "Kern" of the "Pudel"—and several subsidiary errors of different kinds. Some of these last are very readily discovered, as that about the coming into being in a thing. With these, however, I am not concerned. I merely remarken passantthat they may all be cleared up with a little care and accuracy, and I turn to the main error, which consists in a constant confusion of two kinds of sameness. The fact is that Parmenides is always passing from "the one," or one in the abstract, mere oneness, to "a one," or one object. These are no more identical in the strict sense than "manhood" and "a man," and in overlooking their difference he is simply confoundingthe first and the fourth kinds of sameness. "The one" cannot have parts, for the good reason that it is a quality taken by itself, and not a thing, which is thought as a bundle of qualities. "A one," on the other hand, may have parts, and each of these parts may be "a one" too. "A one" by no means consists of a single element, oneness, but of this element combined with others; and each such group may be distinguished from each other such group, and all be recognized as similar, or the same in a true sense of the word. The question whether one can be in a place, too, evidently has to do, not with "the one," but "a one," for spacial or temporal differences areindividualizing, and distinguish a thing from another thing of the same kind. To ask whether "the one" may or may not be in a place is inadmissible.The same error is at the bottom of the argument about the one's being in motion or at rest. The question has no significance except in reference to "a one." If we speak of "the one" as in motion, we at once put this abstract element in such a relation to other elements that we have no longer "the one" but "a one." "The one" cannot have change in itself and remain "the one," but "a one" may change a good deal and still be "a one." And without admitting the justice of the argument, that what has no parts cannot be in anything, the proof of the impossibility of motion in space may be condemned merely upon the ground that it is only "the one" which cannot have parts, while it is only "a one" which is concerned in the problem of motion. The same may be said for the argument against the one's coming into being in anything. It is only "a one" which can be thought as coming into being in a thing, and "a one" may have parts. As for the impossibility of the one's being at rest, on the ground that to be at rest, a thing must be in the same, and one cannot be in anything—this is a repetition of the formererror. "A one" may be in something, as has been pointed out, even on the basis established at the outset, and it is with this, and not with "the one," that we are concerned in the problem of rest and motion.The rest of the argument is based upon errors of a different kind, and in it one may keep to "the one" throughout, if one choose. There is, of course, no reason to think that the speaker did this. He probably here, as before, carried over to "a one," one thought as an individual thing, distinctions drawn in view of "the one," one viewed in the abstract. As some of the statements made may be true or false as one is taken in this sense or that; and particularly as the antinomy rests upon a misconception as to the nature of sameness, I will continue the analysis. What is to be proved is, first, that one cannot be the same with itself or other, or other than itself or other; and second, that it cannot be like or unlike itself or other. The position that the one, if other than itself, would not be one, and if the same with other, would be that other, is somewhat ambiguous. If "a one" is in question, it may undoubtedly be "a one" and yet be other than any particular one; and it may be the same with other—another one—without ceasing to be one, if by same we mean similar. The play upon words in "other of other" it is not necessary to consider. The conclusion that one cannot be the same with itself is based upon the supposition that sameness is a quality superadded to the other qualities of a thing; but in its first sense the word does not even serve to indicate a relation; it is merely used to point out the absence of duality. Both "a one" and "the one" may be the same with themselves perfectly well, and in saying so we do not in thought endow them with any quality not already possessed. This last error serves also as a basis to the second paradoxical position, that one cannot be like or unlike itself or other. It assumes likeness and unlikenessto be qualities added to the other qualities of things which are like or unlike.A possible objection to my use of the term "a one" I must forestall before passing on. I have used this as synonymous with "one object." One horse is one object, and so is one part of a horse. It may be said, however, that "a one" may also be used to signify a single occurrence of oneness, as distinguished from another occurrence of oneness. That any element of consciousness may be distinguished from any similar element merely by spatial or temporal differences I have argued in the first part of my monograph. Why may not then "a one" mean the oneness of this one horse, or the oneness of this part of the horse? And if it may, can "a one" of this kind have parts any more than "the one?"I answer, it cannot; for it is then only a particular occurrence of the quality (if I may so use the word) of oneness. But, then, if we so understand the term, the argument loses all significance. We cannot call "a one" of this kind a container or a thing contained, or talk of it as encircled by anything. We do not even try to imagine it as moving on its centre, or passing from place to place, or coming into being in anything, or being at rest in anything. Such language we use only in speaking of things. It seems to me plain that the speaker is thinking of one as a thing, and it is this that gives its charm to the bundle of paradoxes. The Eleatic "one" was always a thing and not mere unity or an occurrence of unity. My criticism of the reasoning is, I think, just. And whether Plato is responsible for the Parmenides or not, we must agree that such a confusion of "the one" and "a one" (as an object) would not be foreign to his modes of thought. His world of Ideas is peopled with "the"'s turned into "a"'s, a fact which his acute pupil Aristotle was not slow to discover.[36]Sec. 26.Aristotle has again and again discussed with his usual keenness the kinds of sameness. He saw well enough that the word is ambiguous, and may with equal right be employed in speaking of experiences which do or do not contain an element of duality. He has pointed out that the law of non-contradiction has to do with sameness of the first kind, and not with the others.[37]His question as to "Socrates" and "Socrates sitting," his treatment of "Coriscus" and "the musical Coriscus," his statement that the white and the musical are the same when they are accidents in the same subject,[38]show that he clearly understood the significance of sameness in sense third. He gives us sense fourth when he says that things may be called the same when they belong to the same species or genus.[39]In his polemic against the Protagorean doctrine of relativity,[40]senses sixth and seventh come to the surface, though they are not very clearly or exhaustively discussed. The fallacy in the apparent possibility of attributing contradictory predicates to the same subject, from the fact that the same wine may appear sweet to one taster and not sweet to another, or at one time sweet and at another not sweet to the one palate, is laid bare in the distinction between kinds of sameness. Aristotle distinguishes between the wine itself and the sensations it produces in different persons, and he recognizes the fact that one man's perception of the "same" wine need not be wholly like that of another. But this does not imply any violation of the law of non-contradiction, for each sensation is just what it is at any instant; and the statement that the same wine is sweet and not sweet at the one moment amounts only to saying that the one object can cause dissimilar sensations in two minds at one moment. As much may be saidfor the non-simultaneous sensations of the one man. Sensations differing in time are two, and may differ without violating any law. In marking the fact that when we say two men perceive the same thing we do not mean that the immediate object of knowledge is in the two cases strictly one, but merely that these two objects are related in a peculiar way, Aristotle draws the line between sameness in sense first and in sense sixth. As to sense seventh. He distinguishes between the apparent and the real, and yet goes on speaking, quite in modern fashion, as though one thing could serve for both. He points out,à proposof pressing upon the eyeball and doubling the visual image, that there is a distinction between the apparent and the real, and then closes the paragraph with the remark that "to those persons who do not move their organ of vision that which is one appears one."[41]This language would certainly seem to indicate that that which is appears—or that they are the same in some strict sense of the word. The sentence reads much in the style of Mr. Spencer or Sir William Hamilton.It appears, then, that Aristotle recognized a sameness in which there is no sense of duality, and samenesses in which two things are called the same and yet distinguished as two. Our way of expressing strict identity, however, a way which, as I have shown, does not properly express it all—seems to have misled him into finding a sort of quasi duality even here, where he knows it to be really absent. In a chapter[42]devoted to sameness and diversity, he closes his list of samenesses with the remark: "It is plain that sameness is a oneness either of two or more things with reference to their essence, or of one thing treated as two; as when you say a thing is the same with itself, for then you do treat it as two." We do employ two words, undoubtedly; but if we are really thinking a thing as itself, we are not making itdual in any sense whatever. The quotation smacks just a little of Cratylus.Sec. 27.The sceptical arguments of Pyrrho are excellent instances of a confusion of samenesses. The argument, for example, that since an apple seen by the eye as yellow seems to the taste sweet, and to the smell as fragrant, "that which is seen is just as likely to be something else as the reality;"[43]this argument gains what little plausibility it may have from the assumption that an object seen and an object tasted are (or ought to be) the same in sense first instead of sense third.And the complaints, that things believed to be large, sometimes, as when at a distance, appear small; that things which we believe to be straight, sometimes seem bent; that the sun has one appearance in the morning, and another at noon;[44]these, and all others like them, assume that an object seen near at hand and then seen at a distance, a stick seen as straight and then seen as crooked, the sun on the horizon and the sun at the zenith, are in each case one strictly, and not merely one as each element in a complex of experiences is one with each other element, when any one may represent the whole. The conclusion that, since it is not possible to view things without reference to "place and position," their true nature cannot be known,[45]is founded upon this error.This becomes clear when one asks, what is it, after all, the nature of which is so in doubt? Is it a stick? the sun? These words are ambiguous. Two consecutive experiences of the same stick—as we ordinarily use this word in speaking of sticks—are not strictly identical, and need not be alike. The stick seen on two occasions is not the same stick in sense I. If I limit the meaning of the words "the stick" to one of these experiences,then the true nature of the stick is just what is experienced on that occasion. What is experienced on the second occasion is another stick, and its true nature is also just what it seems to be. If, however, by "the stick" I do not mean only the experience of one moment, but a series of experiences differing more or less from one another, then I am under no necessity to select one of them as the true nature of the stick, for its true nature is nothing more nor less than the whole group of experiences. If I try to discover or to invent some new experience which I may call the true nature of the group, I am simply adding to it in thought another experience which takes its place among those the group already contains. I am playing with the word nature. This last experience could not be more important than those among which it is placed, and it could not stand for any one of them in any other way than each of them could stand for it. Should it be objected that by "the stick" one does not mean either a single experience of the stick or the sum total of the group of experiences, but a something distinct from all these and inferred through them, I answer, that in this case the argument from the variability of experiences is not to the point. Such a "stick" as this would be the same with either of those just discussed only in the seventh sense of the word, and its nature would be the same with their nature only in that sense too. An experience of the stick out of "place and position," if that were conceivable, would not give us this "stick," for such an experience would still be an experience. It must never be forgotten that this "external" stick is quite distinct from any or all experiences, and could not be given in experiences of any kind. It can only be inferred. If an unvarying series of experiences is good ground for inferring an unvarying "external" stick, similar to what is experienced, one would suppose a varying series of experiences would furnish a basis for inference of a varying"external" stick, in its successive phases like what is experienced. Unless some reason is given for a discrimination in favor of the unvarying series, the argument from variation does not affect the "external" stick at all.It is evident, however, that in this particular argument, at least, the "external" is not in Pyrrho's mind at all. What perplexes him is, that what he is accustomed to call a straight stick sometimes looks crooked. On reflection he discovers that he calls it straight only because it seems straight on some occasions; and if it may at one time seem straight and at another seem crooked, which is it in reality? The question is a very natural one. The unreflective do not ask it, because they assume that one of the experiences is to be taken as expressing the true nature of the object and the other relegated to the sphere of more or less deceptive appearance. The man who has begun to reflect does ask it, because he sees that the assumed true nature is an appearance too, and it naturally occurs to him that it also may be deceptive. If he reflected more, he would see that he is partly right and partly wrong. We do not regard as equally important every element in the group of experiences which we call an object. Certain elements, notably the tactual qualities and those visual experiences which give us the best opportunity of inferring the tactual qualities, stand in the foreground when we speak of the object. We name the object according to these. In saying "a straight stick" we have prominently in mind certain tactual experiences, and certain visual experiences which normally are connected with these and give us the right to infer them. We call any appearance delusive which leads us to infer tactual experiences, and visual experiences of a kind regarded as best representative of these tactual experiences, when such cannot be actually experienced. Certain elements in the total group, which is to us an experienced object, may then properly be regarded as in a sensethe true nature of the object, they are the most important part, and the part to which other elements are referred. These elements may justly be regarded as delusive when they mislead us in our inferences as to the important elements. So far the common man is right. And as no element is delusive in itself, but only in so far as it refers the mind to something else, and to the wrong something else, those elements which are ultimate and not used as signs of others, cannot be delusive. In raising this question with regard to them Pyrrho is wrong. These elements may, to be sure, be used as signs or indications of any other elements in the group, and in their turn made stepping stones; but this is not commonly done, and language and common thought rarely mark logical possibilities. The language in use fairly expresses the attitude of the average man towards the elements in his thought.On the other hand, the unreflective man speaks as if the less important, or perhaps I had better say less prominent, experiences were not a part of the object as he knows it. He seems to regard the whole object as actually present, when a single experience only is present. In putting all experiences on the same plane, so to speak, the Pyrrhonist makes a genuine advance. Wherein he errs is this: He sees that a stick seen near at hand is as much an experience or appearance as a stick seen at a distance, and that one of these phenomena does not differ in kind from the other; he sees also that to assume that one is the real stick and the other is not, seems to go upon the assumption that they differ in kind; he is consequently unwilling to call any one of his experiences the real stick, and yet he insists upon looking for a real stick, which may be expressed in a single experience. It never seems to occur to him that the real stick may be the name of the whole series of experiences in their appropriate relations. He wishes a sameness in the strict sense, with noelement of duality. The stick seen straight in the air, and seen bent in the water, is the same stick in sense third. It takes both of these experiences to express the true nature of this stick. No one experience could serve. It is the battle between stick as a single experience, and stick as a group of experiences, that leads to all the confusion.I have given as much space to Pyrrho as I care to, and I will not delay over him and his successors. These furnish good material to one fond of analysis. There is, however, a great deal of repetition among the sceptics. They occupy themselves chiefly either in confounding the first kind of sameness with the third, as in the preceding; or in confounding the first kind with the sixth, as in the argument for uncertainty drawn from the varying guise under which the same object appears to different persons. The ambiguity of the word same, as here used, is apparent, and it is in this ambiguity that they become entangled.Sec. 28.Into the labyrinths of the scholastic philosophy I hesitate to enter, and yet I could hardly be excused for passing on to the moderns without at least a reference to the great dispute over Universals—a dispute which is, at bottom, a quarrel concerning samenesses. I shall speak of it very briefly.The object of the general term or class name is in question. Plato, distinguishing between the universal and the individual, between man and men, thought it necessary, according to Aristotle, who has not, I think, done him injustice, to assume an object for the universal outside of and apart from all the individuals forming a class. The Idea is a real thing,thereal thing in which the individuals participate, or of which they are copies; but it is not itself to be found in any or all of them, except, so to speak, in a figurative or metaphorical way. Aristotle, finding no reason to assume a new individual, for so he regarded the Platonic Idea, placed the universalinthe individuals composingthe class. Certain of the schoolmen, emphasizing the distinction between real things and mental representations, maintained that only individuals have real existence, and asserted either that universals exist merely as peculiar combinations of mental elements which serve to think the objects forming a class, or that the universal is the word, which may be applied indifferently to many individuals of one kind. In these views we have theuniversalia ante rem, theuniversalia in re, and theuniversalia post rem; or extreme Realism, moderate Realism, and Nominalism in its two forms.The examination into the respective merits of the positions which have been taken with regard to universals will be facilitated by distinguishing carefully between the different spheres of being; that is, between things immediately known and "real" things mediately known, as also between things contained in one consciousness and those contained in another. It is plainly important not to confound these classes with each other.Let us take, first, a number of resembling objects in a single consciousness. I have already pointed out that when we say several such objects are the same we do not at all mean to deny that they are distinct objects. We merely wish to indicate that each possesses certain elements which, taken by themselves, and after making abstraction from all other elements, render impossible any distinction between different objects. We distinguish two objects as two through some difference, even if it be only local or temporal. Redness combined with x and redness combined with y are recognized as two occurrences of redness, but this only on account of x and y. Redness perceived to-day and redness perceived yesterday are two occurrences of redness, marked as such by the "to-day" and the "yesterday." Redness considered simply contains nothing which will allow of such distinctions. This does not imply at all that rednessconsidered simply isan occurrence of redness—that since we have not two or more occurrence of the quality we have a single occurrence of it, an individual. We have not, if we have really abstracted from all save the redness, any "occurrence" or "occurrences" at all, for these imply just the elements of difference which we are endeavoring to eliminate. An "occurrence" of redness means redness with a difference which will mark it out from other redness, from another "occurrence." If, then, one gives to twenty individuals a common name to indicate that they resemble each other, or are in some sense the same, he should keep clearly in mind just what this means. It means that along with various differing elements each contains the element x. He should remember that each individual is the same with each other individual only in this sense, sense fourth. When he proposes to separate the x from the other elements, and consider it separately, he should be most careful to see that he is really taking it separately, and not allowing shreds of foreign matter to hang to it and give rise to difficulties and perplexities. He should not overlook the fact that there is a fallacy in the very question, Whether the x in one individual is identical (the same in sense first) with the x in any other individual? If these two x's are distinguishable as in two individuals, one is not considering x merely, but x with other elements. The separation of the x element from the other elements in the objects is here not complete, or one would be considering not "an x" or "x's," but x. Any one who sees this must see that he who asks such a question is retaining a duality, and then trying to get out of it an identity with no element of duality. He is "milking the he-goat." He is trying to reduce sameness in sense fourth to sameness in sense first.Twenty objects immediately known must not be confounded with twenty "real" things not immediately known, and of whichthe objects are supposed to be representatives. These two classes are the same with each other only in sense seventh. I have discussed in detail in the first part of my monograph the samenesses of "real" things, and it is not necessary to repeat what I have said. It is enough to state that it was there made evident that when we speak of a number of similar "real" things as the same, we use the word in sense fourth, and have in mind just the elements which are present when we speak of several similar immediate objects of knowledge as the same. We are merely carrying over to a set of imagined duplicates a distinction which we observe in objects recognized as within consciousness. When, therefore, we give twenty "real" things a common name, and form them into a class, because they are alike, we mean that along with various other "real" elements, each of these objects contains the "real" element x. The word same means to us just what it does when we speak of twenty similar immediate objects as the same. We have changed only the objects; we have not changed the sameness and all that depends upon it. Two such objects are the same in sense fourth, and never in sense first. If they could be the same in sense first, they would not be two. When a man undertakes to separate in thought the "real" x element from the other "real" elements in two or more such objects, he should be careful, as in the case of immediate objects, to make a complete separation and not a partial one. He should see here, too, that the question whether the x in one object and the x in another are strictly identical, is a foolish one. "This x" and "that x" are not strictly identical, or they would not be "this x" and "that x." Remove completely the "this" and the "that" and all other differing elements—leave, that is, only x, and the possibility of any such question simply disappears. If there still seem to anyone ground for a question in the premises, it is evidence that he is not consideringmerely x. He is trying to keep two things two, and yet make them one.Twenty objects in one consciousness must not be confounded with twenty objects in another. When we speak of two men as seeing the same thing, we do not mean that the object in one mind is the same with the object in the other in sense first, but in sense sixth. This does not prevent them from being two. A single object in one mind may be the same with itself in sense first. A number of similar objects in one mind may be the same in sense fourth. Two objects or two classes of objects in different minds may be the same in sense sixth. One may, to be sure, think of twenty objects in one mind, and of the same (sense sixth) twenty objects in another mind as forty objects. Philosophical reflection naturally leads to this. I am inducing a reader to do it when I tell him that an object in one mind and the same object in another are two objects. But in doing this, one must bear in mind the fact that the forty objects belong to two quite distinct classes, and that common language would not reckon them as forty, but as twenty. In this there is, of course, a pitfall for the unwary.Now, when Plato looked for the object of the general name, for the x contained in a class of similar objects, what did he do? He created a new object distinct from and apart from all the others. He is very vague in his statements, and he was probably quite as vague in his thought; but I cannot see how anyone familiar with the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Timaeus, the Symposium and the Parmenides, and familiar with Plato's concrete way of thinking in images, can avoid coming to the conclusion that the Idea was to him predominantly an object, an individual—a vague and inconsistent object, if you please, but still an object. Butanx is in no sense a universal. It is the same with other x's only in sense fourth; that is, it is like them. Thex that they have in common must be x considered simply, not x considered as here or there, in this place or in that. All such differences must be eliminated if one is to get not an individual, but a universal. If the Idea may be considered asapartfrom objects, it is an object in so far not essentially differing from the others. Again, the Platonic Idea is an object, but not to be put upon the same plane with other objects. They suffer change, while it is immutable; they are perceivable by the senses, and it is not. The objects of sense and the Idea are in different worlds; and though we cannot accuse Plato of drawing the distinctions of the modern hypothetical realist, he has certainly given us a suggestive parallel to the Lockian ideas and "real" things. The trouble has arisen out of his difficulty in keeping an abstraction abstract; he has turned it into a concrete, and, finding in the world of sense no place for this concrete, this new individual, he has given it a world of its own. Whatever this object in this world apart may be, it is certainly not what is common to twenty individuals in the world of sensible things.Aristotle, seeing this difficulty, placed the ideainthe objects forming the class. It may be objected that putting xina place individualizes it as much as putting itout ofa place. This is quite true if the "in" is taken locally—taken as it is when we speak of a man as being in one room rather than another. The x in one object is not identically the x in another object. We do not get the universal, x in the abstract, until we lose the distinctions "in the one object," and "in the other object." Two x's cannot be the same in sense first, from the mere fact that they are two; an x in one place and an x in another place are always two. If, however, by the statement that the universal is in the objects, one mean merely that the universal is that element x, which, combined with certain elements, forms a totalwhich is known as this object, and combined with certain others forms a total which is known as that, but taken by itself contains no distinction of this and that; if this is all that is meant by the "in," there is no objection to the use of the statement, and it is strictly true. The x element is a part of each of the objects, but, until some addition is made to it, it is not "the x in this object" or "the x in that object"; it is what they have in common. The "in common" means just this.The Nominalistic doctrine that only individuals have real existence, and that the universal, whatever it may be, is to be sought in the mind, distinguishes between the spheres of being and denies to one what it allows to another. Of the extreme nominalistic position, that the only true universal is the word, which may be applied indifferently to several distinct objects, I shall not here speak. I have discussed this wholly untenable view elsewhere.[46]But the more reasonable Nominalism, the conceptualistic, is worthy of examination here. In so far as it holds that the mind can form a concept, which shall consist of the element or elements several objects have in common, we have no quarrel with it. Here we find a true universal, obtained by discarding differences which distinguish objects from one another. We obtain by this that mental core common to several similar mental objects. If, however, we distinguish between mental objects and "real" things corresponding to them, we have evidently two distinct fields to consider. When we say a number of objects in consciousness are alike, we are simply pointing out the fact that they contain a universal element as well as individual differences. Can we say that a number of "real" objects are alike? If so, what do we mean in saying it? Ifthere is nothing to prevent us from calling them individuals, there would seem to be nothing to prevent us from affirming that they are "really" alike. Does likeness ever mean anything except sameness in difference? Is not, then, the element in which several objects resemble each other a universal element, whether the objects be mental or "real?" What else does universal mean? The excuse for speaking ceases when language ceases to be significant. One does not in the least explain the similarity, or sameness in the fourth sense, of a number of "real" objects, by assuming a universal in a quite different world—one which could not possibly exist in the world of the objects. This solution of the problem is Platonic. The element which twenty real objects have in common must be a "real" element, or it cannot be a constituent part of each object. If it is not a constituent part of each object, it is absurd to speak of the objects as having it in common. If they have nothing in common, it is absurd to say that they are alike. Twenty similar objects must have a universal element, to whatever sphere of being they belong; and this element must belong to the same sphere as the objects. A mental universal is the same with a "real" universal only in sense seventh, and it can furnish no explanation of the likeness of "real" things.In the light of the foregoing analysis a goodly number of the scholastic arguments regarding universals are easily seen to contain errors. The Anselmic view of genera and species as universal substances,[47]for instance, makes an abstraction a thing and distinguishes it from other things. It fails to keep it abstract. The doctrine attributed to William of Champeaux, by Abelard, that universals are essentially and wholly present in each of their individuals, in which latter there is no diversity of essence, but only variety through accidents,[48]is tenable or notaccording to the sense in which the words are taken. The word "wholly" is an awkward one, and would incline one to the view that William regarded the universal as a thing, a concrete, which may be in this place or that. If this were his opinion, and it is perhaps more reasonable to believe that it was, the objection of Abelard, that this would necessitate the same thing's being in different places at the same time, would hold good. If the essence of humanity be wholly in Socrates, it must be where Socrates is. It cannot, then, be somewhere else in Plato. Manifestly humanity, so regarded, is not a universal at all. It is "this humanity" or "that humanity,"i. e., this or that occurrence of humanity; and two occurrences of a quality or group of qualities are two individuals. The word "in" I have shown to be ambiguous. Any element, regarded as, in one sense,inan individual, retains the local flavor which makes universality impossible. But if William meant nothing more by his statement than that the element common to the individuals is a constituent part of each, and that there is in it no distinction which will allow us to put it part here and part there, the polemic of Abelard is not justifiable. Whatever he may have intended to say, there can be no mistake as to the meaning of the following sentence from Robert Pulleyn: "The species is the whole substance of individuals, and the whole species is the same in each individual: therefore the species is one substance, but its individuals many persons, and these many persons are that one substance."[49]The dialectician represented as saying this, ought to have been a prey to profound melancholy; his samenesses are clearly in deplorable confusion. He makes his universal an individual, and then imposes upon it duties whichno individual can fulfil with credit. It is to be one and yet not one: distinct from something else, and yet identical with it. It is to be a universal and not a universal. It is by no means to be envied. The conceptualistic position of Abelard, that we may gain a subjective universal by abstraction, but that only individuals exist in reality, is open to the objections that I advanced in discussing Nominalism. The position is supported[50]by the argument that we may abstract the form from the substantial subject to which it is united, and consider it separately, while in nature there is no such abstraction, the form and the subject forming a united whole. To this one may answer, as I have indicated above, that, whatever it may be united with, the form in the several individuals is in some sense the same, or the individuals would not be alike, and the concept would be of no service in representing it. What is meant by such sameness? Is it anything but sameness in sense fourth? When several objects are the same in sense fourth, is not the element common to them a universal? Why make this conceptualistic discrimination between things in mind and "real" things?Finally, in passing from scholasticism, I would suggest that it is conducive to clearness in thinking to bear in mind that when Albert, or Thomas, or Duns, declares in favor of all three kinds of universal,ante rem,in re, andpost rem, he is declaring for three things and not one. He is not at all in the position of the old Platonic Realist; but is rather, if I may so express it, a kind of triple Aristotelian. One may perfectly well hold to all three universals, by putting one in the mind of God, one in things, and one in a human mind; but an individual may be given this three-fold existence quite as well as a universal. In the old Realism the problem of the universal called into existence a new sphere of being. Here a new sphere of being, assumed upon extraneousgrounds, furnishes one more universal. The universals in the mind of God are not assumed as the object of the general name applied to twenty "real" objects. The object of this name is thein re. Theante remuniversal cannot, then, be gotten as Plato got it. In this distinction between the different spheres of being we have an advance in reflection; but as I have said, on this new ground the individual may demand its rights. Theante remRealism of the great scholastics of the thirteenth century should not be confounded with that of an earlier period. It is not open to the same objections. But on the other hand, it has not the same excuse for existence. It is a historical relic.Sec. 29.The first of the moderns to whom I shall refer is Descartes. There are certain passages in the Meditations which will well illustrate the efforts made by this remarkable man in the direction of accurate analysis, as also the errors into which he fell through a confusion of the kinds of sameness. I shall quote from the second and third Meditations:"Let us now accordingly consider the things which are commonly thought the easiest of all to know, and which are thought also to be the most distinctly known, that is, the bodies that we touch and see; not indeed bodies in general, for these general notions are usually a little more confused: but let us consider a single one of them. Let us take, for example, this bit of wax; it has just been taken from the hive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it contained; it still keeps something of the odor of the flowers from which it has been gathered; its color, its figure, its size, are apparent; it is hard, it is cold, it is easily handled, and if struck it gives a sound. In a word, everything that can make a body distinctly known is found in this one. But notice, while I speak, it is placed near the fire; what remained of savor and odor disappears, its color changes, its figure is lost, its size increases, it becomes liquid, grows hot, one can scarcely handle it, and when struck it no longer gives asound. Does the same wax remain after this change? One must admit that it does; no one doubts it; no one judges otherwise. What then was it that was known with so much distinctness in this bit of wax? Certainly nothing that I perceived by means of the senses, for all the things which fall under taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing, are changed, and yet the same wax remains. Perhaps it was what I think now, namely, that this wax was neither the sweetness of honey, the agreeable odor of flowers, the whiteness, the figure, nor the sound, but only a body which a little before appeared to my senses under these forms, and which now appears to them under others. But to speak precisely, what do I imagine when I think it in this way? Let us consider it attentively, and abstracting all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. Surely nothing remains but something extended, flexible and mutable. But what is that, flexible and mutable? Is it not that I imagine that this bit of wax, being round, is capable of becoming square and of changing from square to triangular? No, it is certainly not that, for I think it capable of an infinite number of similar changes; but I could not run through this infinite number by my imagination, and consequently this conception that I have of the wax is not due to the faculty of imagination. But what now is this extension? Is it not also unknown? For it becomes greater when the wax melts, greater when it boils, and still greater when the heat increases, and I could not conceive clearly and truly what wax is, if I did not think that even this bit that we are considering is capable of receiving more varieties of extension than I have ever imagined. It must then be admitted that I could not comprehend by imagination even what this bit of wax is, and that only my understanding can comprehend it. I say this particular bit of wax; for as for wax in general, it is still more evident. But what is this bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainlythe same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning. But, what is important to note here is, that my perception is not a sensation of sight, nor of touch, nor an act of the imagination, and it has never been this, although it may have seemed so before; but it is merely an intuition (inspection) of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is at present, according as my attention is directed more or less to the elements in it, and of which it is composed."However, I cannot be too much surprised when I consider the weakness of my mind and its proneness to be carried insensibly into error. For even when I consider all this in my own mind, and without using language, the words arrest me, and I am almost deceived by the terms in common use; for we say that we see the same wax if it be present, and not that we judge that it is the same, from its having the same color and figure; whence I might be tempted to conclude that one knows the wax by the sight of the eyes, and not merely by the intuition of the mind, were it not that, in looking from a window at men passing in the street, I say that I see men, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from this window except hats and cloaks which might cover machines moved by springs? But I judge that they are men, and thus comprehend only by the power of judging, which is in my mind, what I thought I saw with my eyes."[51]What Descartes is feeling for in this is sameness in sense third. When we use the words "a bit of wax," we do not have in mind a single experience. The wax in a solid and the wax in a liquid state is to us the same wax. I have pointed out what the word same, so used, means. It means that these two experiences are recognized as belonging to the one group or series of experiences; and the wax, completely known, is the sum total of the series. Descartes saw very well that the two experiences under discussion are not strictly identical (the same in sense first), and he saw also that they are very unlike. He naturally asked, In what then are they the same? or, what is there that is here the same? And, instead of accepting the fact that such a sameness as this cannot be reduced to one of the others, he solved the problem by passing from the experiences, the "hats and cloaks," to a "real" thing underlying. In other words, to explain the sameness of two experiences of a bit of wax, sameness in sense third, he assumed "real" wax, which is the same with the experiences which represent it only in sense seventh. This real wax, or something in it, he supposes to remain the same on two occasions. It is this to which he makes the mind refer when it calls the wax the same. But when a man advances statements about a bit of wax, his information rests ultimately upon hisexperiences, if it be grounded at all. From the experience one infers the "real" thing, and notvice versa. No one knew this better than Descartes, with his fundamental principle of the certainty of consciousness and the uncertainty of what is "external." He got his "real" world by a process of reasoning, and put it in a realm wholly cut off from direct observation. This being the case, one cannot but wonder at his inconsistency in the present instance. Is one to remain in doubt whether a piece of wax felt to be hard, and then melted before the fire, is the same, until one has had some means of discovering that the same "real" wax ispresent on the two occasions? How is one to find out whether "real" wax is ever present unless he infer its presence from some experience? And how is one to know that the same "real" wax is present on two occasions unless he infer it from the fact that what is directly perceived on the two occasions is the same in some sense of the word? Whatever sameness there is rests ultimately for its evidence upon the experiences. There is nothing else to judge from. The reasoning, which would base the sameness of what is experienced upon the sameness of a corresponding "real" thing, when the sameness of this latter is to be inferred from the former, reminds one of the stupid argument, still occasionally met with, which would infer a God from data of consciousness, and then found a belief in the veracity of consciousness upon the goodness of God. One may believe, if one please, that, when we have two distinct experiences so connected that we call them two perceptions of the same wax, there is in some way connected with them a bit of "real" wax which remains in some sense the same. But one should never suppose that any given experienced wax is proved the same by reference to this. It is judged the same upon observation.Descartes then was inconsistent with his own principles when he made this jump to a new sphere of being. The sameness of the experienced object is ultimate; the only pertinent question is, what does it mean? It means, as I have said, that the wax hard and the wax soft are the same in sense third. But sameness in sense third admits of wide dissimilarities in the experiences it unites into the notion of the one object. Descartes looked for a sameness without these dissimilarities. He would reduce sense third to sense first, or, perhaps, to sense second. To do this he must go behind the experiences to a "real" thing, which is to remain the same as a proxy for what is evidently variable. This makeshift is only satisfactory to one who overlooks,or allows to fall into the background, the plain fact that representative and thing represented are two separate things and not to be confused; that is, who confuses sameness in sense first with sameness in sense seventh. Descartes distinguished carefully between ideas and external things, but he sometimes overlooked the distinction. "But what is this bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainly the same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning." How ambiguous! is it the same in sense first or sense seventh? The sentence following would indicate sense seventh, but the spirit of the whole discussion would argue for sense first. One must delude oneself into believing that one can get at "real" wax directly, in some way or other, or one cannot think of making it an ultimate ground of reasoning. Descartes, like so many others, would seem to have vibrated between a clear consciousness that ideas and "real" things are distinct, belonging to different worlds, and a confused belief that they belong to the one world, and that "real" things are open to direct observation.I shall take still another extract from this author. It contains similar errors."Now, among these ideas, some appear to me to be inborn, others to be foreign and to come from without, and still others to be made and invented by myself. For, as to the faculty of conceiving that which, in general, one calls a thing, or a truth, or a thought, it appears to me that I do not get that from any other source than my own nature; but if now I hear a sound, if I see the sun, if I feel the heat, up to the present I have judged that these sensations proceed from things which exist without me; and lastly, it seems to me that syrens, hippogriffs, and all similar chimeras are fictions and inventions of my mind. Butperhaps I can persuade myself, that all these ideas belong to the class of those that I call foreign, and that come to me from without, or that they are all innate, or else that they are all created by myself; for I have not yet clearly discovered their true source. And my chief duty here is to consider, touching those which seem to come from objects without me, what reasons I have for thinking them like their objects."The first of the reasons is that I seem to be taught to do so by nature; and the second, that I perceive that these ideas are not dependent upon my will; for often they present themselves to me in spite of me, as now, whether I wish it or not, I feel heat, and consequently am persuaded that this sensation or idea of heat is produced in me by something different from me, to wit: by the heat of the fire by which I am sitting. And I cannot see that anything is more reasonable than to judge that this external object emits and impresses upon me its resemblance rather than anything else."Now I must see if these reasons are sufficiently strong and convincing. When I say that I seem to be taught so by nature, I mean merely by this word nature a certain inclination which leads me to believe it, and not a natural light which gives me certain knowledge that it is true. But these two ways of speaking are very different, for I cannot doubt anything that the natural light shows me to be true, as it has just shown me that from the fact of my doubting I may infer my existence; inasmuch as I have not in me any other faculty or power of distinguishing the true from the false to teach me that what this light shows me to be true is not true, and in which I may have as much confidence as in it. But as concerns inclinations which also seem to me natural, I have often remarked, when it has been a question of choice between virtues and vices, that they do not less incline to evil than to good; it follows that I have no morereason to follow them when the true and the false are in question. And as for the other reason, which is that these ideas must come from without, since they are not dependent on my will, I do not find it more convincing. For while these inclinations of which I have just spoken are in me, notwithstanding that they are not always in harmony with my will, perhaps there is in me some faculty or power capable of producing these ideas without the aid of external things, although it is yet unknown to me; as indeed it has always seemed to me up to this time that when I sleep they are thus formed in me without the aid of the objects they represent. Finally, even should I admit that they are caused by these objects, it does not necessarily follow that they must be like them. On the contrary, I have often remarked in many instances, that there is a great difference between an object and its idea: as, for example, I find in me two very different ideas of the sun; the one has its source in the senses, and should be placed in the class of those which I have said above come from without, and from this it seems to me very small; the other has it origin in astronomical reasonings, that is to say, in certain notions which are inborn, or else formed in some way or other by myself, and from this it seems to me many times greater than the whole earth. Surely, these two ideas which I have of the sun cannot both be like the same sun; and reason convinces me that the one which is derived directly from its appearance is the one which is most unlike it. All of which proves to me that, up to this hour, it has not been by a sure and premeditated judgment, but merely by a blind and rash impulse, that I have been led to believe that there are things without me, and different from my being, which, by the organs of my senses, or by whatever other means, convey to me their ideas or images, and impress upon me their resemblances."[52]
Those now who propose to hold mutual discussion must needs understand one another somewhat: for without this how can they have any mutual discussion? Each of their words then, must be familiar and have definite meaning, and not many meanings, but one only, and if it have more meanings than one, they must make it clear in which of these senses it is used.Aristotle, Metaph., Book X, c. 5, § 3.
Those now who propose to hold mutual discussion must needs understand one another somewhat: for without this how can they have any mutual discussion? Each of their words then, must be familiar and have definite meaning, and not many meanings, but one only, and if it have more meanings than one, they must make it clear in which of these senses it is used.
Aristotle, Metaph., Book X, c. 5, § 3.
Section 21.When Heraclitus of Ephesus, moved thereto by his view of the constant flux of things, declared it impossible to enter the same river twice,[30]he evidently supposed that a river can be the same only in the first and strictest sense of the word. He denied, consequently, a right to use the word, as it constantly is used, to indicate that certain phenomena belong to a group or series, which, in its totality, is to us a single object. When we say that we have entered the same river twice we have no reference to the actual experiences of the two occasions considered merely as experiences. Of course, these are not the same, as each is itself, and they may even be somewhat dissimilar. Nor have we reference to the separate particles of which the body of water is composed. We all admit that the water in a river changes, and yet we never think of saying that the river is no longer the same. The two kinds of sameness are quite distinct, yet both are legitimate; and both were as familiar to the ancient Greek as to the modern American. Socrates was considered Socrates from boyhood through youth to manhood. The Ilissus was the Ilissus whether swollen or shrunken. The philosopher's difficulty with the river did not arise out ofthe fact that this kind of sameness was not perfectly well recognized in language and in common thought. It arose out of the fact that the beginnings of reflection make many things seem strange which before passed unnoticed, and sometimes lead to assertion and denial evidently contrary to experience and common sense. The unreflective man calls the river the same on two successive days, but he has no clear notion of what the word implies. In a loose way he opposes "same" to "different." Heraclitus saw that the water in a river is constantly changing. He who enters twice does not enter precisely the same body of water. What more natural, and what more fallacious, than to assert that he does not twice enter the same river?
Sec. 22.And well might Cratylus hold his peace and move his finger[31]when he had capped the climax with the statement that the same river could not be entered once. Heraclitus had merely denied sameness of the third kind to be sameness, since it implies duality. Cratylus, surprised by a discovery of duality where he had not before suspected it, will not allow the term where there is no duality whatever. It is not surprising that he came at last to be "of opinion that one ought to speak of nothing." Upon such a basis speech loses its significance.
Sec. 23.The Parmenidean argument for the eternity of Being[32]rests partly upon a confusion of the first kind of sameness with the fourth. Being has had no origin, for from what could it have been derived? Not from the non-existent, for this has no existence: and not from the existent, for it is itself the existent. The quibble about the non-existent we need not consider, though it is seriously repeated by more than one writer of our time. The last part of the argument, "not from the existent, for it is itself the existent," draws its whole force from the assumptionthat "it" is "the existent" as a thing is itself, or in the first sense of the word same. But if this be the case, the argument is a mere farce, an argument only in words. The phrase, "derived from the existent," means nothing at all unless it means that the existent in question is before the thing derived. To say it is the thing derived, is to reduce the words to nothing. If it mean anything to speak of the existent as derived from the existent, it is because each of these isanexistent—that is, a thing belonging to a class and distinguished from other members of this class by some difference. In this case the difference is that of before and after. An existent derived from an existent is the same with it only as things of a class are the same. If we choose to eliminate all differences and speak of "theexistent" we may do so; but then it is inadmissible to raise questions about its derivation, and bring in those very time distinctions between different "existents" which we are supposing absent.
Sec. 24.The nihilistic doctrine of Gorgias of Leontini,[33]who taught that nothing exists, that if it did exist it could not be known, and that if it did exist and could be known the knowledge of it could not be communicated by one mind to another, is founded in part upon such bad reasoning that it is rather surprising that Gorgias should have been guilty of it. That part of it, however, which has to do with the communicability of knowledge is rather better than the rest, and indicates some progress in reflection. A sign, he says, differs from the thing it signifies. How can one communicate the notion of color by words, since the ear hears sounds and not colors? Besides, how can the same idea be in two different persons? This reasoning would seem at least plausible, I think, to many minds at the present day. It is evidently the offspring of a confusion of samenesses. A sign differs,it is true, from the thing signified. The word blue heard by the ear is not like the color blue seen or imagined. But if any one pronounce the word, and ask me if I am thinking of the color he has mentioned, I say yes. The sound is not like the color, but it is its representative, and one of the proper uses of the word same (the fifth) indicates just this relation between representative and thing represented. Any attempt to discredit communication of knowledge on the ground that one cannot speak colors, and that, therefore, one man is speaking one thing and the other thinking another, goes on the supposition that what is said and what is thought must be the same in sense first (strict identity) or in sense fourth (must be a thing of the same kind). And as to the existence of the same thing in two minds; here Gorgias has evidently discovered with some surprise that sameness in sense sixth differs from sameness in sense first, and has felt impelled to deny it the name altogether. He has perceived a duality where most men have not noticed it; and, instead of observing that there are samenesses and samenesses, and that the communication of knowledge is concerned with the sixth kind in this connection, and not with the first, he has denied the communication of knowledge. Had he found it necessary to carry out his theoretic premises to practical conclusions he would have stopped talking, which he did not; though presumably the irrepressible didactic instinct would have led him, spite of consistency, to imitate Cratylus in moving his finger.
Sec. 25.The reasoning in the Platonic Dialogues is very frequently not above suspicion; but it is not easy to find anywhere such a nest of paralogisms as we have in the Parmenides. How far Plato was in earnest in all this quibbling, and what was his aim, I will not pretend to say. He has, however, very well illustrated the possibilities of equivocation in juggling with samenesses, andI shall quote a bit of the argument concerning the one and the many to show how readily this is done. Almost any part of the dialogue would do, but I choose the first bout between Parmenides and Aristoteles. I take Professor Jowett's version:[34]
Parmenides proceeded: If one is, he said, the one cannot be many?
Impossible.
Then the one cannot have parts, and cannot be a whole?
How is that?
Why, the part would surely be the part of a whole?
Yes.
And that of which no part is wanting, would be a whole?
Certainly.
Then, in either case, one would be made up of parts; both as being a whole, and also as having parts?
Certainly.
And in either case, the one would be many, and not one?
True.
But, surely, one ought to be not many, but one?
Surely.
Then, if one is to remain one, it will not be a whole, and will not have parts?
No.
And if one has no parts, it will have neither beginning, middle, nor end; for these would be parts of one?
Right.
But then, again, a beginning and an end are the limits of everything?
Certainly.
Then the one, neither having beginning nor end, is unlimited?
Yes, unlimited.
And therefore formless, as not being able to partake either of round or straight.
How is that?
Why, the round is that of which all the extreme points are equidistant from the centre?
Yes.
And the straight is that of which the middle intercepts the extremes?
True.
Then the one would have parts, and would be many, whether it partook of a straight or of a round form?
Assuredly.
But having no parts, one will be neither straight nor round?
Right.
Then, being of such a nature, one cannot be in any place, for it cannot be either in another or in itself.
How is that?
Because, if one be in another, it will be encircled in that other in which it is contained, and will touch it in many places; but that which is one and indivisible, and does not partake of a circular nature, cannot be touched by a circle in many places.
Certainly not.
And one being in itself, will also contain itself, and cannot be other than one, if in itself; for nothing can be in anything which does not contain it.
Impossible.
But then, is not that which contains other than that which is contained? for the same whole cannot at once be affected actively and passively; and one will thus be no longer one, but two?
True.
Then one cannot be anywhere, either in itself or in another?
No.
Further consider, whether that which is of such a nature can have either rest or motion.
Why not?
Why, because motion is either motion in place or change in self; these are the only kinds of motion.
Yes.
And the one, when changed in itself, cannot possibly be any longer one.
It cannot.
And therefore cannot experience this sort of motion?
Clearly not.
Can the motion of one, then, be in place?
Perhaps.
But if one moved in place, must it not either move round and round in the same place, or from one place to another?
Certainly.
And that which moves round and round in the same place, must go round upon a centre; and that which goes round upon a centre must have other parts which move around the centre; but that which has no centre and no parts cannot possibly be carried round upon a centre?
Impossible.
But perhaps the motion of the one consists in going from one place to another?
Perhaps so, if it moves at all.
And have we not already shown that one can not be in anything?
Yes.
And still greater is the impossibility of one coming into being in anything?
I do not see how that is.
Why, because anything which comes into being in anything,cannot as yet be in that other thing while still coming into being, nor remain entirely out of it, if already coming into being in it.
Certainly.
And therefore whatever comes into being in another must have parts, and the one part may be in that other, and the other part out of it; but that which has no parts cannot possibly be at the same time a whole, which is either within or without anything.
True.
And how can that which has neither parts, nor a whole, come into being anywhere either as a part or a whole? Is not that a still greater impossibility?
Clearly.
Then one does not change by a change of place, whether by going somewhere and coming into being in something; or again, by going round in the same place; or again, by change in itself?
True.
The one, then, is incapable of any kind of motion?
Incapable.
But neither can the one exist in anything, as we affirm?
Yes, that is affirmed by us.
Then it is never in the same?
Why not?
Because being in the same is being in something which is the same.
Certainly.
But it cannot be in itself, and cannot be in other?
True.
Then one is never the same?[35]
It would seem not.
And that which is never in the same has no rest, and stands not still?
It cannot stand still.
One, then, as would seem, is neither standing still nor in motion?
Clearly not.
Neither will one be the same with itself or other; nor again, other than itself, or other.
How is that?
If other than itself it would be other than one, and would not be one.
True.
And if the same with other, it would be that other, and not itself; so that upon this supposition, too, it would not have the nature of one, but would be other than one?
It would.
Then it will not be the same with other, or other than itself?
It will not.
Neither will one be other than other, while it remains one; for not the one, but only the other, can be other of other, and nothing else.
True.
Then not by virtue of being one, will one be other?
Certainly not.
But if not by virtue of being one, not by virtue of being itself; and if not by virtue of being itself, not itself, and itself not being other at all, will not be other of anything?
Right.
Neither will one be the same with itself.
Why not?
Because the nature of the one is surely not the nature of the same.
Why is that?
Because when a thing becomes the same with anything, it does not necessarily become one.
Why not?
That which becomes the same with the many necessarily becomes many and not one.
True.
And yet, if there were no difference between the one and the same, when a thing became the same, it would always become one; and when it became one, the same.
Certainly.
And, therefore, if one be the same with one, it is not one with one, and will therefore be one and also not one.
But that is surely impossible.
And therefore the one can neither be other of other, nor the same with one.
Impossible.
And thus one is neither the same, nor other, in relation to itself or other?
No.
Neither will one be like or unlike itself or other.
Why not?
Because likeness is sameness of affections.
Yes.
And sameness has been shown to be a nature distinct from oneness?
That has been shown.
But if one had any other affection than that of being one, it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one; and that is impossible.
True.
Then one can never have the same affections either as another or as itself?
Clearly not.
Then it cannot be like other, or like itself.
No.
Nor can it be affected so as to be other, for then it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one.
It would.
That which is affected in a manner other than itself or other, will be unlike itself or other, if sameness of affections is likeness.
True.
But the one, as appears, never having affections other than its own, is never unlike itself or other?
Never.
Then the one is never either like or unlike itself or other?
Plainly not.
In reading this extract one cannot but admire the courtesy or wonder at the simplicity of Aristoteles. He always answers just as he should to keep the ball rolling; and he is in no wise compelled to do this under the circumstances, for the argument is loose in the extreme. Briefly stated, the reasoning is as follows:
One cannot be a whole, and cannot have parts, for then it would not be one, but many. But if it has no parts it has no beginning, middle, or end, and is formless. It is then in no place, for it cannot be in itself, since the container must be different from the thing contained; nor can it be in other, for it would have to be encircled by that other, and touched in many parts, which is impossible. It follows that it can neither be at rest nor in motion. Not in motion; for it cannot have change in itself, or it would no longer be one; nor can it have motion in place, whether circular motion upon a centre or motion fromplace to place; the former for the reason that circular motion implies a centre and parts around the centre; and the latter because one is in no place: and as to coming into being in anything, which may be regarded as a kind of motion, while doing this it would have to be part in and part not in, which is impossible. It cannot be at rest, for one is never in the same; to be in the same, is to be in something which is the same, and one cannot be in anything. Nor, farther, can one be the same with itself or other, nor other than itself or other. If other than itself it would not be one; and if the same with other it would be that other, and not itself. On the other hand only other can be the other of other, and not one; and the one cannot be the same with itself, for the nature of the one is not the nature of the same, since that which becomes the same with the many does not become one. Finally, one cannot be like or unlike itself or other, for likeness is sameness of affections, and sameness is not oneness; one must, however, have no affection except oneness, or it becomes more than one. It cannot, then, have the same affections as itself or other. As, for the same reason, it cannot have other affections than itself or other, it cannot be unlike.
We have here one chief error, which runs through almost the whole of the argument—is, indeed, the "Kern" of the "Pudel"—and several subsidiary errors of different kinds. Some of these last are very readily discovered, as that about the coming into being in a thing. With these, however, I am not concerned. I merely remarken passantthat they may all be cleared up with a little care and accuracy, and I turn to the main error, which consists in a constant confusion of two kinds of sameness. The fact is that Parmenides is always passing from "the one," or one in the abstract, mere oneness, to "a one," or one object. These are no more identical in the strict sense than "manhood" and "a man," and in overlooking their difference he is simply confoundingthe first and the fourth kinds of sameness. "The one" cannot have parts, for the good reason that it is a quality taken by itself, and not a thing, which is thought as a bundle of qualities. "A one," on the other hand, may have parts, and each of these parts may be "a one" too. "A one" by no means consists of a single element, oneness, but of this element combined with others; and each such group may be distinguished from each other such group, and all be recognized as similar, or the same in a true sense of the word. The question whether one can be in a place, too, evidently has to do, not with "the one," but "a one," for spacial or temporal differences areindividualizing, and distinguish a thing from another thing of the same kind. To ask whether "the one" may or may not be in a place is inadmissible.
The same error is at the bottom of the argument about the one's being in motion or at rest. The question has no significance except in reference to "a one." If we speak of "the one" as in motion, we at once put this abstract element in such a relation to other elements that we have no longer "the one" but "a one." "The one" cannot have change in itself and remain "the one," but "a one" may change a good deal and still be "a one." And without admitting the justice of the argument, that what has no parts cannot be in anything, the proof of the impossibility of motion in space may be condemned merely upon the ground that it is only "the one" which cannot have parts, while it is only "a one" which is concerned in the problem of motion. The same may be said for the argument against the one's coming into being in anything. It is only "a one" which can be thought as coming into being in a thing, and "a one" may have parts. As for the impossibility of the one's being at rest, on the ground that to be at rest, a thing must be in the same, and one cannot be in anything—this is a repetition of the formererror. "A one" may be in something, as has been pointed out, even on the basis established at the outset, and it is with this, and not with "the one," that we are concerned in the problem of rest and motion.
The rest of the argument is based upon errors of a different kind, and in it one may keep to "the one" throughout, if one choose. There is, of course, no reason to think that the speaker did this. He probably here, as before, carried over to "a one," one thought as an individual thing, distinctions drawn in view of "the one," one viewed in the abstract. As some of the statements made may be true or false as one is taken in this sense or that; and particularly as the antinomy rests upon a misconception as to the nature of sameness, I will continue the analysis. What is to be proved is, first, that one cannot be the same with itself or other, or other than itself or other; and second, that it cannot be like or unlike itself or other. The position that the one, if other than itself, would not be one, and if the same with other, would be that other, is somewhat ambiguous. If "a one" is in question, it may undoubtedly be "a one" and yet be other than any particular one; and it may be the same with other—another one—without ceasing to be one, if by same we mean similar. The play upon words in "other of other" it is not necessary to consider. The conclusion that one cannot be the same with itself is based upon the supposition that sameness is a quality superadded to the other qualities of a thing; but in its first sense the word does not even serve to indicate a relation; it is merely used to point out the absence of duality. Both "a one" and "the one" may be the same with themselves perfectly well, and in saying so we do not in thought endow them with any quality not already possessed. This last error serves also as a basis to the second paradoxical position, that one cannot be like or unlike itself or other. It assumes likeness and unlikenessto be qualities added to the other qualities of things which are like or unlike.
A possible objection to my use of the term "a one" I must forestall before passing on. I have used this as synonymous with "one object." One horse is one object, and so is one part of a horse. It may be said, however, that "a one" may also be used to signify a single occurrence of oneness, as distinguished from another occurrence of oneness. That any element of consciousness may be distinguished from any similar element merely by spatial or temporal differences I have argued in the first part of my monograph. Why may not then "a one" mean the oneness of this one horse, or the oneness of this part of the horse? And if it may, can "a one" of this kind have parts any more than "the one?"
I answer, it cannot; for it is then only a particular occurrence of the quality (if I may so use the word) of oneness. But, then, if we so understand the term, the argument loses all significance. We cannot call "a one" of this kind a container or a thing contained, or talk of it as encircled by anything. We do not even try to imagine it as moving on its centre, or passing from place to place, or coming into being in anything, or being at rest in anything. Such language we use only in speaking of things. It seems to me plain that the speaker is thinking of one as a thing, and it is this that gives its charm to the bundle of paradoxes. The Eleatic "one" was always a thing and not mere unity or an occurrence of unity. My criticism of the reasoning is, I think, just. And whether Plato is responsible for the Parmenides or not, we must agree that such a confusion of "the one" and "a one" (as an object) would not be foreign to his modes of thought. His world of Ideas is peopled with "the"'s turned into "a"'s, a fact which his acute pupil Aristotle was not slow to discover.[36]
Sec. 26.Aristotle has again and again discussed with his usual keenness the kinds of sameness. He saw well enough that the word is ambiguous, and may with equal right be employed in speaking of experiences which do or do not contain an element of duality. He has pointed out that the law of non-contradiction has to do with sameness of the first kind, and not with the others.[37]His question as to "Socrates" and "Socrates sitting," his treatment of "Coriscus" and "the musical Coriscus," his statement that the white and the musical are the same when they are accidents in the same subject,[38]show that he clearly understood the significance of sameness in sense third. He gives us sense fourth when he says that things may be called the same when they belong to the same species or genus.[39]In his polemic against the Protagorean doctrine of relativity,[40]senses sixth and seventh come to the surface, though they are not very clearly or exhaustively discussed. The fallacy in the apparent possibility of attributing contradictory predicates to the same subject, from the fact that the same wine may appear sweet to one taster and not sweet to another, or at one time sweet and at another not sweet to the one palate, is laid bare in the distinction between kinds of sameness. Aristotle distinguishes between the wine itself and the sensations it produces in different persons, and he recognizes the fact that one man's perception of the "same" wine need not be wholly like that of another. But this does not imply any violation of the law of non-contradiction, for each sensation is just what it is at any instant; and the statement that the same wine is sweet and not sweet at the one moment amounts only to saying that the one object can cause dissimilar sensations in two minds at one moment. As much may be saidfor the non-simultaneous sensations of the one man. Sensations differing in time are two, and may differ without violating any law. In marking the fact that when we say two men perceive the same thing we do not mean that the immediate object of knowledge is in the two cases strictly one, but merely that these two objects are related in a peculiar way, Aristotle draws the line between sameness in sense first and in sense sixth. As to sense seventh. He distinguishes between the apparent and the real, and yet goes on speaking, quite in modern fashion, as though one thing could serve for both. He points out,à proposof pressing upon the eyeball and doubling the visual image, that there is a distinction between the apparent and the real, and then closes the paragraph with the remark that "to those persons who do not move their organ of vision that which is one appears one."[41]This language would certainly seem to indicate that that which is appears—or that they are the same in some strict sense of the word. The sentence reads much in the style of Mr. Spencer or Sir William Hamilton.
It appears, then, that Aristotle recognized a sameness in which there is no sense of duality, and samenesses in which two things are called the same and yet distinguished as two. Our way of expressing strict identity, however, a way which, as I have shown, does not properly express it all—seems to have misled him into finding a sort of quasi duality even here, where he knows it to be really absent. In a chapter[42]devoted to sameness and diversity, he closes his list of samenesses with the remark: "It is plain that sameness is a oneness either of two or more things with reference to their essence, or of one thing treated as two; as when you say a thing is the same with itself, for then you do treat it as two." We do employ two words, undoubtedly; but if we are really thinking a thing as itself, we are not making itdual in any sense whatever. The quotation smacks just a little of Cratylus.
Sec. 27.The sceptical arguments of Pyrrho are excellent instances of a confusion of samenesses. The argument, for example, that since an apple seen by the eye as yellow seems to the taste sweet, and to the smell as fragrant, "that which is seen is just as likely to be something else as the reality;"[43]this argument gains what little plausibility it may have from the assumption that an object seen and an object tasted are (or ought to be) the same in sense first instead of sense third.
And the complaints, that things believed to be large, sometimes, as when at a distance, appear small; that things which we believe to be straight, sometimes seem bent; that the sun has one appearance in the morning, and another at noon;[44]these, and all others like them, assume that an object seen near at hand and then seen at a distance, a stick seen as straight and then seen as crooked, the sun on the horizon and the sun at the zenith, are in each case one strictly, and not merely one as each element in a complex of experiences is one with each other element, when any one may represent the whole. The conclusion that, since it is not possible to view things without reference to "place and position," their true nature cannot be known,[45]is founded upon this error.
This becomes clear when one asks, what is it, after all, the nature of which is so in doubt? Is it a stick? the sun? These words are ambiguous. Two consecutive experiences of the same stick—as we ordinarily use this word in speaking of sticks—are not strictly identical, and need not be alike. The stick seen on two occasions is not the same stick in sense I. If I limit the meaning of the words "the stick" to one of these experiences,then the true nature of the stick is just what is experienced on that occasion. What is experienced on the second occasion is another stick, and its true nature is also just what it seems to be. If, however, by "the stick" I do not mean only the experience of one moment, but a series of experiences differing more or less from one another, then I am under no necessity to select one of them as the true nature of the stick, for its true nature is nothing more nor less than the whole group of experiences. If I try to discover or to invent some new experience which I may call the true nature of the group, I am simply adding to it in thought another experience which takes its place among those the group already contains. I am playing with the word nature. This last experience could not be more important than those among which it is placed, and it could not stand for any one of them in any other way than each of them could stand for it. Should it be objected that by "the stick" one does not mean either a single experience of the stick or the sum total of the group of experiences, but a something distinct from all these and inferred through them, I answer, that in this case the argument from the variability of experiences is not to the point. Such a "stick" as this would be the same with either of those just discussed only in the seventh sense of the word, and its nature would be the same with their nature only in that sense too. An experience of the stick out of "place and position," if that were conceivable, would not give us this "stick," for such an experience would still be an experience. It must never be forgotten that this "external" stick is quite distinct from any or all experiences, and could not be given in experiences of any kind. It can only be inferred. If an unvarying series of experiences is good ground for inferring an unvarying "external" stick, similar to what is experienced, one would suppose a varying series of experiences would furnish a basis for inference of a varying"external" stick, in its successive phases like what is experienced. Unless some reason is given for a discrimination in favor of the unvarying series, the argument from variation does not affect the "external" stick at all.
It is evident, however, that in this particular argument, at least, the "external" is not in Pyrrho's mind at all. What perplexes him is, that what he is accustomed to call a straight stick sometimes looks crooked. On reflection he discovers that he calls it straight only because it seems straight on some occasions; and if it may at one time seem straight and at another seem crooked, which is it in reality? The question is a very natural one. The unreflective do not ask it, because they assume that one of the experiences is to be taken as expressing the true nature of the object and the other relegated to the sphere of more or less deceptive appearance. The man who has begun to reflect does ask it, because he sees that the assumed true nature is an appearance too, and it naturally occurs to him that it also may be deceptive. If he reflected more, he would see that he is partly right and partly wrong. We do not regard as equally important every element in the group of experiences which we call an object. Certain elements, notably the tactual qualities and those visual experiences which give us the best opportunity of inferring the tactual qualities, stand in the foreground when we speak of the object. We name the object according to these. In saying "a straight stick" we have prominently in mind certain tactual experiences, and certain visual experiences which normally are connected with these and give us the right to infer them. We call any appearance delusive which leads us to infer tactual experiences, and visual experiences of a kind regarded as best representative of these tactual experiences, when such cannot be actually experienced. Certain elements in the total group, which is to us an experienced object, may then properly be regarded as in a sensethe true nature of the object, they are the most important part, and the part to which other elements are referred. These elements may justly be regarded as delusive when they mislead us in our inferences as to the important elements. So far the common man is right. And as no element is delusive in itself, but only in so far as it refers the mind to something else, and to the wrong something else, those elements which are ultimate and not used as signs of others, cannot be delusive. In raising this question with regard to them Pyrrho is wrong. These elements may, to be sure, be used as signs or indications of any other elements in the group, and in their turn made stepping stones; but this is not commonly done, and language and common thought rarely mark logical possibilities. The language in use fairly expresses the attitude of the average man towards the elements in his thought.
On the other hand, the unreflective man speaks as if the less important, or perhaps I had better say less prominent, experiences were not a part of the object as he knows it. He seems to regard the whole object as actually present, when a single experience only is present. In putting all experiences on the same plane, so to speak, the Pyrrhonist makes a genuine advance. Wherein he errs is this: He sees that a stick seen near at hand is as much an experience or appearance as a stick seen at a distance, and that one of these phenomena does not differ in kind from the other; he sees also that to assume that one is the real stick and the other is not, seems to go upon the assumption that they differ in kind; he is consequently unwilling to call any one of his experiences the real stick, and yet he insists upon looking for a real stick, which may be expressed in a single experience. It never seems to occur to him that the real stick may be the name of the whole series of experiences in their appropriate relations. He wishes a sameness in the strict sense, with noelement of duality. The stick seen straight in the air, and seen bent in the water, is the same stick in sense third. It takes both of these experiences to express the true nature of this stick. No one experience could serve. It is the battle between stick as a single experience, and stick as a group of experiences, that leads to all the confusion.
I have given as much space to Pyrrho as I care to, and I will not delay over him and his successors. These furnish good material to one fond of analysis. There is, however, a great deal of repetition among the sceptics. They occupy themselves chiefly either in confounding the first kind of sameness with the third, as in the preceding; or in confounding the first kind with the sixth, as in the argument for uncertainty drawn from the varying guise under which the same object appears to different persons. The ambiguity of the word same, as here used, is apparent, and it is in this ambiguity that they become entangled.
Sec. 28.Into the labyrinths of the scholastic philosophy I hesitate to enter, and yet I could hardly be excused for passing on to the moderns without at least a reference to the great dispute over Universals—a dispute which is, at bottom, a quarrel concerning samenesses. I shall speak of it very briefly.
The object of the general term or class name is in question. Plato, distinguishing between the universal and the individual, between man and men, thought it necessary, according to Aristotle, who has not, I think, done him injustice, to assume an object for the universal outside of and apart from all the individuals forming a class. The Idea is a real thing,thereal thing in which the individuals participate, or of which they are copies; but it is not itself to be found in any or all of them, except, so to speak, in a figurative or metaphorical way. Aristotle, finding no reason to assume a new individual, for so he regarded the Platonic Idea, placed the universalinthe individuals composingthe class. Certain of the schoolmen, emphasizing the distinction between real things and mental representations, maintained that only individuals have real existence, and asserted either that universals exist merely as peculiar combinations of mental elements which serve to think the objects forming a class, or that the universal is the word, which may be applied indifferently to many individuals of one kind. In these views we have theuniversalia ante rem, theuniversalia in re, and theuniversalia post rem; or extreme Realism, moderate Realism, and Nominalism in its two forms.
The examination into the respective merits of the positions which have been taken with regard to universals will be facilitated by distinguishing carefully between the different spheres of being; that is, between things immediately known and "real" things mediately known, as also between things contained in one consciousness and those contained in another. It is plainly important not to confound these classes with each other.
Let us take, first, a number of resembling objects in a single consciousness. I have already pointed out that when we say several such objects are the same we do not at all mean to deny that they are distinct objects. We merely wish to indicate that each possesses certain elements which, taken by themselves, and after making abstraction from all other elements, render impossible any distinction between different objects. We distinguish two objects as two through some difference, even if it be only local or temporal. Redness combined with x and redness combined with y are recognized as two occurrences of redness, but this only on account of x and y. Redness perceived to-day and redness perceived yesterday are two occurrences of redness, marked as such by the "to-day" and the "yesterday." Redness considered simply contains nothing which will allow of such distinctions. This does not imply at all that rednessconsidered simply isan occurrence of redness—that since we have not two or more occurrence of the quality we have a single occurrence of it, an individual. We have not, if we have really abstracted from all save the redness, any "occurrence" or "occurrences" at all, for these imply just the elements of difference which we are endeavoring to eliminate. An "occurrence" of redness means redness with a difference which will mark it out from other redness, from another "occurrence." If, then, one gives to twenty individuals a common name to indicate that they resemble each other, or are in some sense the same, he should keep clearly in mind just what this means. It means that along with various differing elements each contains the element x. He should remember that each individual is the same with each other individual only in this sense, sense fourth. When he proposes to separate the x from the other elements, and consider it separately, he should be most careful to see that he is really taking it separately, and not allowing shreds of foreign matter to hang to it and give rise to difficulties and perplexities. He should not overlook the fact that there is a fallacy in the very question, Whether the x in one individual is identical (the same in sense first) with the x in any other individual? If these two x's are distinguishable as in two individuals, one is not considering x merely, but x with other elements. The separation of the x element from the other elements in the objects is here not complete, or one would be considering not "an x" or "x's," but x. Any one who sees this must see that he who asks such a question is retaining a duality, and then trying to get out of it an identity with no element of duality. He is "milking the he-goat." He is trying to reduce sameness in sense fourth to sameness in sense first.
Twenty objects immediately known must not be confounded with twenty "real" things not immediately known, and of whichthe objects are supposed to be representatives. These two classes are the same with each other only in sense seventh. I have discussed in detail in the first part of my monograph the samenesses of "real" things, and it is not necessary to repeat what I have said. It is enough to state that it was there made evident that when we speak of a number of similar "real" things as the same, we use the word in sense fourth, and have in mind just the elements which are present when we speak of several similar immediate objects of knowledge as the same. We are merely carrying over to a set of imagined duplicates a distinction which we observe in objects recognized as within consciousness. When, therefore, we give twenty "real" things a common name, and form them into a class, because they are alike, we mean that along with various other "real" elements, each of these objects contains the "real" element x. The word same means to us just what it does when we speak of twenty similar immediate objects as the same. We have changed only the objects; we have not changed the sameness and all that depends upon it. Two such objects are the same in sense fourth, and never in sense first. If they could be the same in sense first, they would not be two. When a man undertakes to separate in thought the "real" x element from the other "real" elements in two or more such objects, he should be careful, as in the case of immediate objects, to make a complete separation and not a partial one. He should see here, too, that the question whether the x in one object and the x in another are strictly identical, is a foolish one. "This x" and "that x" are not strictly identical, or they would not be "this x" and "that x." Remove completely the "this" and the "that" and all other differing elements—leave, that is, only x, and the possibility of any such question simply disappears. If there still seem to anyone ground for a question in the premises, it is evidence that he is not consideringmerely x. He is trying to keep two things two, and yet make them one.
Twenty objects in one consciousness must not be confounded with twenty objects in another. When we speak of two men as seeing the same thing, we do not mean that the object in one mind is the same with the object in the other in sense first, but in sense sixth. This does not prevent them from being two. A single object in one mind may be the same with itself in sense first. A number of similar objects in one mind may be the same in sense fourth. Two objects or two classes of objects in different minds may be the same in sense sixth. One may, to be sure, think of twenty objects in one mind, and of the same (sense sixth) twenty objects in another mind as forty objects. Philosophical reflection naturally leads to this. I am inducing a reader to do it when I tell him that an object in one mind and the same object in another are two objects. But in doing this, one must bear in mind the fact that the forty objects belong to two quite distinct classes, and that common language would not reckon them as forty, but as twenty. In this there is, of course, a pitfall for the unwary.
Now, when Plato looked for the object of the general name, for the x contained in a class of similar objects, what did he do? He created a new object distinct from and apart from all the others. He is very vague in his statements, and he was probably quite as vague in his thought; but I cannot see how anyone familiar with the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Timaeus, the Symposium and the Parmenides, and familiar with Plato's concrete way of thinking in images, can avoid coming to the conclusion that the Idea was to him predominantly an object, an individual—a vague and inconsistent object, if you please, but still an object. Butanx is in no sense a universal. It is the same with other x's only in sense fourth; that is, it is like them. Thex that they have in common must be x considered simply, not x considered as here or there, in this place or in that. All such differences must be eliminated if one is to get not an individual, but a universal. If the Idea may be considered asapartfrom objects, it is an object in so far not essentially differing from the others. Again, the Platonic Idea is an object, but not to be put upon the same plane with other objects. They suffer change, while it is immutable; they are perceivable by the senses, and it is not. The objects of sense and the Idea are in different worlds; and though we cannot accuse Plato of drawing the distinctions of the modern hypothetical realist, he has certainly given us a suggestive parallel to the Lockian ideas and "real" things. The trouble has arisen out of his difficulty in keeping an abstraction abstract; he has turned it into a concrete, and, finding in the world of sense no place for this concrete, this new individual, he has given it a world of its own. Whatever this object in this world apart may be, it is certainly not what is common to twenty individuals in the world of sensible things.
Aristotle, seeing this difficulty, placed the ideainthe objects forming the class. It may be objected that putting xina place individualizes it as much as putting itout ofa place. This is quite true if the "in" is taken locally—taken as it is when we speak of a man as being in one room rather than another. The x in one object is not identically the x in another object. We do not get the universal, x in the abstract, until we lose the distinctions "in the one object," and "in the other object." Two x's cannot be the same in sense first, from the mere fact that they are two; an x in one place and an x in another place are always two. If, however, by the statement that the universal is in the objects, one mean merely that the universal is that element x, which, combined with certain elements, forms a totalwhich is known as this object, and combined with certain others forms a total which is known as that, but taken by itself contains no distinction of this and that; if this is all that is meant by the "in," there is no objection to the use of the statement, and it is strictly true. The x element is a part of each of the objects, but, until some addition is made to it, it is not "the x in this object" or "the x in that object"; it is what they have in common. The "in common" means just this.
The Nominalistic doctrine that only individuals have real existence, and that the universal, whatever it may be, is to be sought in the mind, distinguishes between the spheres of being and denies to one what it allows to another. Of the extreme nominalistic position, that the only true universal is the word, which may be applied indifferently to several distinct objects, I shall not here speak. I have discussed this wholly untenable view elsewhere.[46]But the more reasonable Nominalism, the conceptualistic, is worthy of examination here. In so far as it holds that the mind can form a concept, which shall consist of the element or elements several objects have in common, we have no quarrel with it. Here we find a true universal, obtained by discarding differences which distinguish objects from one another. We obtain by this that mental core common to several similar mental objects. If, however, we distinguish between mental objects and "real" things corresponding to them, we have evidently two distinct fields to consider. When we say a number of objects in consciousness are alike, we are simply pointing out the fact that they contain a universal element as well as individual differences. Can we say that a number of "real" objects are alike? If so, what do we mean in saying it? Ifthere is nothing to prevent us from calling them individuals, there would seem to be nothing to prevent us from affirming that they are "really" alike. Does likeness ever mean anything except sameness in difference? Is not, then, the element in which several objects resemble each other a universal element, whether the objects be mental or "real?" What else does universal mean? The excuse for speaking ceases when language ceases to be significant. One does not in the least explain the similarity, or sameness in the fourth sense, of a number of "real" objects, by assuming a universal in a quite different world—one which could not possibly exist in the world of the objects. This solution of the problem is Platonic. The element which twenty real objects have in common must be a "real" element, or it cannot be a constituent part of each object. If it is not a constituent part of each object, it is absurd to speak of the objects as having it in common. If they have nothing in common, it is absurd to say that they are alike. Twenty similar objects must have a universal element, to whatever sphere of being they belong; and this element must belong to the same sphere as the objects. A mental universal is the same with a "real" universal only in sense seventh, and it can furnish no explanation of the likeness of "real" things.
In the light of the foregoing analysis a goodly number of the scholastic arguments regarding universals are easily seen to contain errors. The Anselmic view of genera and species as universal substances,[47]for instance, makes an abstraction a thing and distinguishes it from other things. It fails to keep it abstract. The doctrine attributed to William of Champeaux, by Abelard, that universals are essentially and wholly present in each of their individuals, in which latter there is no diversity of essence, but only variety through accidents,[48]is tenable or notaccording to the sense in which the words are taken. The word "wholly" is an awkward one, and would incline one to the view that William regarded the universal as a thing, a concrete, which may be in this place or that. If this were his opinion, and it is perhaps more reasonable to believe that it was, the objection of Abelard, that this would necessitate the same thing's being in different places at the same time, would hold good. If the essence of humanity be wholly in Socrates, it must be where Socrates is. It cannot, then, be somewhere else in Plato. Manifestly humanity, so regarded, is not a universal at all. It is "this humanity" or "that humanity,"i. e., this or that occurrence of humanity; and two occurrences of a quality or group of qualities are two individuals. The word "in" I have shown to be ambiguous. Any element, regarded as, in one sense,inan individual, retains the local flavor which makes universality impossible. But if William meant nothing more by his statement than that the element common to the individuals is a constituent part of each, and that there is in it no distinction which will allow us to put it part here and part there, the polemic of Abelard is not justifiable. Whatever he may have intended to say, there can be no mistake as to the meaning of the following sentence from Robert Pulleyn: "The species is the whole substance of individuals, and the whole species is the same in each individual: therefore the species is one substance, but its individuals many persons, and these many persons are that one substance."[49]The dialectician represented as saying this, ought to have been a prey to profound melancholy; his samenesses are clearly in deplorable confusion. He makes his universal an individual, and then imposes upon it duties whichno individual can fulfil with credit. It is to be one and yet not one: distinct from something else, and yet identical with it. It is to be a universal and not a universal. It is by no means to be envied. The conceptualistic position of Abelard, that we may gain a subjective universal by abstraction, but that only individuals exist in reality, is open to the objections that I advanced in discussing Nominalism. The position is supported[50]by the argument that we may abstract the form from the substantial subject to which it is united, and consider it separately, while in nature there is no such abstraction, the form and the subject forming a united whole. To this one may answer, as I have indicated above, that, whatever it may be united with, the form in the several individuals is in some sense the same, or the individuals would not be alike, and the concept would be of no service in representing it. What is meant by such sameness? Is it anything but sameness in sense fourth? When several objects are the same in sense fourth, is not the element common to them a universal? Why make this conceptualistic discrimination between things in mind and "real" things?
Finally, in passing from scholasticism, I would suggest that it is conducive to clearness in thinking to bear in mind that when Albert, or Thomas, or Duns, declares in favor of all three kinds of universal,ante rem,in re, andpost rem, he is declaring for three things and not one. He is not at all in the position of the old Platonic Realist; but is rather, if I may so express it, a kind of triple Aristotelian. One may perfectly well hold to all three universals, by putting one in the mind of God, one in things, and one in a human mind; but an individual may be given this three-fold existence quite as well as a universal. In the old Realism the problem of the universal called into existence a new sphere of being. Here a new sphere of being, assumed upon extraneousgrounds, furnishes one more universal. The universals in the mind of God are not assumed as the object of the general name applied to twenty "real" objects. The object of this name is thein re. Theante remuniversal cannot, then, be gotten as Plato got it. In this distinction between the different spheres of being we have an advance in reflection; but as I have said, on this new ground the individual may demand its rights. Theante remRealism of the great scholastics of the thirteenth century should not be confounded with that of an earlier period. It is not open to the same objections. But on the other hand, it has not the same excuse for existence. It is a historical relic.
Sec. 29.The first of the moderns to whom I shall refer is Descartes. There are certain passages in the Meditations which will well illustrate the efforts made by this remarkable man in the direction of accurate analysis, as also the errors into which he fell through a confusion of the kinds of sameness. I shall quote from the second and third Meditations:
"Let us now accordingly consider the things which are commonly thought the easiest of all to know, and which are thought also to be the most distinctly known, that is, the bodies that we touch and see; not indeed bodies in general, for these general notions are usually a little more confused: but let us consider a single one of them. Let us take, for example, this bit of wax; it has just been taken from the hive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it contained; it still keeps something of the odor of the flowers from which it has been gathered; its color, its figure, its size, are apparent; it is hard, it is cold, it is easily handled, and if struck it gives a sound. In a word, everything that can make a body distinctly known is found in this one. But notice, while I speak, it is placed near the fire; what remained of savor and odor disappears, its color changes, its figure is lost, its size increases, it becomes liquid, grows hot, one can scarcely handle it, and when struck it no longer gives asound. Does the same wax remain after this change? One must admit that it does; no one doubts it; no one judges otherwise. What then was it that was known with so much distinctness in this bit of wax? Certainly nothing that I perceived by means of the senses, for all the things which fall under taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing, are changed, and yet the same wax remains. Perhaps it was what I think now, namely, that this wax was neither the sweetness of honey, the agreeable odor of flowers, the whiteness, the figure, nor the sound, but only a body which a little before appeared to my senses under these forms, and which now appears to them under others. But to speak precisely, what do I imagine when I think it in this way? Let us consider it attentively, and abstracting all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. Surely nothing remains but something extended, flexible and mutable. But what is that, flexible and mutable? Is it not that I imagine that this bit of wax, being round, is capable of becoming square and of changing from square to triangular? No, it is certainly not that, for I think it capable of an infinite number of similar changes; but I could not run through this infinite number by my imagination, and consequently this conception that I have of the wax is not due to the faculty of imagination. But what now is this extension? Is it not also unknown? For it becomes greater when the wax melts, greater when it boils, and still greater when the heat increases, and I could not conceive clearly and truly what wax is, if I did not think that even this bit that we are considering is capable of receiving more varieties of extension than I have ever imagined. It must then be admitted that I could not comprehend by imagination even what this bit of wax is, and that only my understanding can comprehend it. I say this particular bit of wax; for as for wax in general, it is still more evident. But what is this bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainlythe same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning. But, what is important to note here is, that my perception is not a sensation of sight, nor of touch, nor an act of the imagination, and it has never been this, although it may have seemed so before; but it is merely an intuition (inspection) of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is at present, according as my attention is directed more or less to the elements in it, and of which it is composed.
"However, I cannot be too much surprised when I consider the weakness of my mind and its proneness to be carried insensibly into error. For even when I consider all this in my own mind, and without using language, the words arrest me, and I am almost deceived by the terms in common use; for we say that we see the same wax if it be present, and not that we judge that it is the same, from its having the same color and figure; whence I might be tempted to conclude that one knows the wax by the sight of the eyes, and not merely by the intuition of the mind, were it not that, in looking from a window at men passing in the street, I say that I see men, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from this window except hats and cloaks which might cover machines moved by springs? But I judge that they are men, and thus comprehend only by the power of judging, which is in my mind, what I thought I saw with my eyes."[51]
What Descartes is feeling for in this is sameness in sense third. When we use the words "a bit of wax," we do not have in mind a single experience. The wax in a solid and the wax in a liquid state is to us the same wax. I have pointed out what the word same, so used, means. It means that these two experiences are recognized as belonging to the one group or series of experiences; and the wax, completely known, is the sum total of the series. Descartes saw very well that the two experiences under discussion are not strictly identical (the same in sense first), and he saw also that they are very unlike. He naturally asked, In what then are they the same? or, what is there that is here the same? And, instead of accepting the fact that such a sameness as this cannot be reduced to one of the others, he solved the problem by passing from the experiences, the "hats and cloaks," to a "real" thing underlying. In other words, to explain the sameness of two experiences of a bit of wax, sameness in sense third, he assumed "real" wax, which is the same with the experiences which represent it only in sense seventh. This real wax, or something in it, he supposes to remain the same on two occasions. It is this to which he makes the mind refer when it calls the wax the same. But when a man advances statements about a bit of wax, his information rests ultimately upon hisexperiences, if it be grounded at all. From the experience one infers the "real" thing, and notvice versa. No one knew this better than Descartes, with his fundamental principle of the certainty of consciousness and the uncertainty of what is "external." He got his "real" world by a process of reasoning, and put it in a realm wholly cut off from direct observation. This being the case, one cannot but wonder at his inconsistency in the present instance. Is one to remain in doubt whether a piece of wax felt to be hard, and then melted before the fire, is the same, until one has had some means of discovering that the same "real" wax ispresent on the two occasions? How is one to find out whether "real" wax is ever present unless he infer its presence from some experience? And how is one to know that the same "real" wax is present on two occasions unless he infer it from the fact that what is directly perceived on the two occasions is the same in some sense of the word? Whatever sameness there is rests ultimately for its evidence upon the experiences. There is nothing else to judge from. The reasoning, which would base the sameness of what is experienced upon the sameness of a corresponding "real" thing, when the sameness of this latter is to be inferred from the former, reminds one of the stupid argument, still occasionally met with, which would infer a God from data of consciousness, and then found a belief in the veracity of consciousness upon the goodness of God. One may believe, if one please, that, when we have two distinct experiences so connected that we call them two perceptions of the same wax, there is in some way connected with them a bit of "real" wax which remains in some sense the same. But one should never suppose that any given experienced wax is proved the same by reference to this. It is judged the same upon observation.
Descartes then was inconsistent with his own principles when he made this jump to a new sphere of being. The sameness of the experienced object is ultimate; the only pertinent question is, what does it mean? It means, as I have said, that the wax hard and the wax soft are the same in sense third. But sameness in sense third admits of wide dissimilarities in the experiences it unites into the notion of the one object. Descartes looked for a sameness without these dissimilarities. He would reduce sense third to sense first, or, perhaps, to sense second. To do this he must go behind the experiences to a "real" thing, which is to remain the same as a proxy for what is evidently variable. This makeshift is only satisfactory to one who overlooks,or allows to fall into the background, the plain fact that representative and thing represented are two separate things and not to be confused; that is, who confuses sameness in sense first with sameness in sense seventh. Descartes distinguished carefully between ideas and external things, but he sometimes overlooked the distinction. "But what is this bit of wax that cannot be comprehended save by the understanding or the mind? It is certainly the same that I see, that I touch, that I imagine; it is, in a word, the same that I have always thought it from the beginning." How ambiguous! is it the same in sense first or sense seventh? The sentence following would indicate sense seventh, but the spirit of the whole discussion would argue for sense first. One must delude oneself into believing that one can get at "real" wax directly, in some way or other, or one cannot think of making it an ultimate ground of reasoning. Descartes, like so many others, would seem to have vibrated between a clear consciousness that ideas and "real" things are distinct, belonging to different worlds, and a confused belief that they belong to the one world, and that "real" things are open to direct observation.
I shall take still another extract from this author. It contains similar errors.
"Now, among these ideas, some appear to me to be inborn, others to be foreign and to come from without, and still others to be made and invented by myself. For, as to the faculty of conceiving that which, in general, one calls a thing, or a truth, or a thought, it appears to me that I do not get that from any other source than my own nature; but if now I hear a sound, if I see the sun, if I feel the heat, up to the present I have judged that these sensations proceed from things which exist without me; and lastly, it seems to me that syrens, hippogriffs, and all similar chimeras are fictions and inventions of my mind. Butperhaps I can persuade myself, that all these ideas belong to the class of those that I call foreign, and that come to me from without, or that they are all innate, or else that they are all created by myself; for I have not yet clearly discovered their true source. And my chief duty here is to consider, touching those which seem to come from objects without me, what reasons I have for thinking them like their objects.
"The first of the reasons is that I seem to be taught to do so by nature; and the second, that I perceive that these ideas are not dependent upon my will; for often they present themselves to me in spite of me, as now, whether I wish it or not, I feel heat, and consequently am persuaded that this sensation or idea of heat is produced in me by something different from me, to wit: by the heat of the fire by which I am sitting. And I cannot see that anything is more reasonable than to judge that this external object emits and impresses upon me its resemblance rather than anything else.
"Now I must see if these reasons are sufficiently strong and convincing. When I say that I seem to be taught so by nature, I mean merely by this word nature a certain inclination which leads me to believe it, and not a natural light which gives me certain knowledge that it is true. But these two ways of speaking are very different, for I cannot doubt anything that the natural light shows me to be true, as it has just shown me that from the fact of my doubting I may infer my existence; inasmuch as I have not in me any other faculty or power of distinguishing the true from the false to teach me that what this light shows me to be true is not true, and in which I may have as much confidence as in it. But as concerns inclinations which also seem to me natural, I have often remarked, when it has been a question of choice between virtues and vices, that they do not less incline to evil than to good; it follows that I have no morereason to follow them when the true and the false are in question. And as for the other reason, which is that these ideas must come from without, since they are not dependent on my will, I do not find it more convincing. For while these inclinations of which I have just spoken are in me, notwithstanding that they are not always in harmony with my will, perhaps there is in me some faculty or power capable of producing these ideas without the aid of external things, although it is yet unknown to me; as indeed it has always seemed to me up to this time that when I sleep they are thus formed in me without the aid of the objects they represent. Finally, even should I admit that they are caused by these objects, it does not necessarily follow that they must be like them. On the contrary, I have often remarked in many instances, that there is a great difference between an object and its idea: as, for example, I find in me two very different ideas of the sun; the one has its source in the senses, and should be placed in the class of those which I have said above come from without, and from this it seems to me very small; the other has it origin in astronomical reasonings, that is to say, in certain notions which are inborn, or else formed in some way or other by myself, and from this it seems to me many times greater than the whole earth. Surely, these two ideas which I have of the sun cannot both be like the same sun; and reason convinces me that the one which is derived directly from its appearance is the one which is most unlike it. All of which proves to me that, up to this hour, it has not been by a sure and premeditated judgment, but merely by a blind and rash impulse, that I have been led to believe that there are things without me, and different from my being, which, by the organs of my senses, or by whatever other means, convey to me their ideas or images, and impress upon me their resemblances."[52]